Page 132 of Lies Like Love

It might be rage. It might be luck. But I make it to her father before he has a chance to grab his gun. I wind back before cracking my knuckles against the side of his face, and the force sends his gun flying.

Her dad falls to the floor, and I straddle him, hitting him again and again as he laughs like the sick man he is. Feeding off every hit like the most sadistic fighters in the ring.

“Jude.” He spits blood when I finally pull back, but I don’t climb off him. “We could have built an empire. Still can.”

“Fuck you.” I pull my knife out and bring the bloodied blade to his throat.

“So this is what you’ll do, make my daughter watch you murder her father.” He grinds his teeth as I press the blade harder against his skin. “She might have looked past it once, but killing both her parents is unforgivable, don’t you think?”

He still blames me when he’s the one who killed her mother. Like if I hadn’t outed them, this would have ended differently. He’s still bargaining, like he has a chance.

He doesn’t. There’s no threat that will stop me from doing what needs to be done. Not even Fel can reign in what must happen.

She’s fighting for breath next to me as water splashes around. But I don’t look at her, even when I feel her eyes begging me to.

“Jude.” My name from her lips is lost in the tunnel of darkness that exists around me in this moment.

I’ve always given her what she needs, whether she likes it or not, and right here, right now, that’s what I intend to do.

Fel is heart. She’s love. She’s purity that shouldn’t exist after all the things they’ve done to her.

She’s perseverance.

And I’ll be her evil every time if it means she’ll come out of this with the goodness only her heart holds. I’ll be the bad guy when it hurts her. I’ll break her heart and spill their blood. It’s my gift.

I’m her villain.

“Jude.” This time my name spits from her father’s lips. A final threat driving me to the edge.

“You can’t kill a man who’s already dead.” I look him in the eyes and peace sweeps through me. “But you can send his soul back to hell.”

I drag the blade across his neck, knowing I should feel guilty as blood pours out onto my hands. Knowing I should care about the fact that Fel is filling the bathtub with her tears. Knowing the calm that makes my heart float in my chest is sick.

I don’t.

I ended this for her, once and for all.

41

Fel

Judeturnsoffthefaucet and reaches out a bloody hand.

Crimson ink that laces every page of our story. Red veins that run through our history like a map that always leads us back to the same place.

Jude and me.

I look into his eyes, and I know this is wrong. But like a truth I can’t deny buried under every lie we’ve told each other; it will never change my love for him.

Reaching up, I take his hand, and he holds me steady as I climb out of the bathtub.

My father chased me in here, and when I tried to hide from him in the tub, he turned on the water and held me under until my lungs burned, and my eyes were filled with so much pressure I thought they might burst.

In that moment I wasn’t afraid—I understood my life and my mother.

How people become a product of what they’re exposed to. The power of money and status was rooted deep in generations on both sides. She was a victim the same way I was. Hardened with the knowledge there was no escape. A tool in her family’s game, and then my father’s. Conditioned and groomed to accept it.

Maybe at one point, she loved my father enough to believe it could be different. Only he didn’t save her, he threw her to his wolves. Something she held against Jude when she shouldn’t have.

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